Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Installing Watir

I’m exploring Watir as part of my presentation I’m developing for next week’s DevGroup meeting.

I ran into one hitch when trying to install Watir right after installing Ruby via the One-Click: you need to exit the Explorer and shell sessions you may have open, then restart them. Do this in order to get the PATH environment variable updated — Watir has to find Ruby on the path or it dies out with a “windows installer error” and complains about not being able to write “\watir\AutoltX.chm”. Note the path — suspiciously like a web path, which keyed me into the idea about not being able to find the Ruby executable.

Time also costs money. SWEA is more mature product then Watir. It has better architecture and support more features. Try to access a frame from a different domain using Watir or try to work with Web site which uses AJAX - you will spend "free" hours doing this without success.

I'd be a lot more open to your tool if it wasn't fairly apparent via simple Google and Technorati searches that you're doing nothing more than pasting verbatim sales pitches on any blog hits for Watir.

About Me

I'm the owner/principal of Guidepost Systems. I help lots of great folks figure out what works and what doesn't in the world of delivering quality software -- something I'm very passionate about. I'm also a Father trying to remain sane while trying to build great software, herd my kids around, fix school lunches and handle the yardwork. (And roast great coffee!)